Drought: So what if?
 

What if this drought last for several more years, how you going to deal with it?

I always thought that since I live right next to a spring fed creek I would have plenty of water to use if a drought hit. Wrong!:confused:

With drought comes pestilence! I got so many grasshoppers here that it wouldn't do any good to use the creek water on my garden. That lush green garden would be a feast to the dan_ little creatures.

Was watching a show on PBS the other day and it was talking about how the bubonic plague got started in Europe. Started out as a drought that lasted for several years. Then scorns of pestilence took over and devoured anything the farmers grew. With the abundance of pestilence everywhere there was plenty of food for the rats,which started populating abundantley, and rats carry fleas, which can carry the bubonic plague.

I hope we don't go through anything like that, but this is the worst I've ever seen it in my 52 years of life. Truthfully I've noticed it getting hotter and dryer every summer ever since Hurrican Katrina hit. I don't know if it was just a coincident that it started then. But I'm wondering just how much longer this will last. From the time the drought hit Europe and the bubonic plague was finally over with was somewhere around a hundred years time. The dirty thirties only lasted 10 years or so, but there are some scientist out there that is predicting this drought to last maybe 20 years or more.

That's not good!

You work harder, you work smarter by balancing nature in your own little environment. We don't live in the Dark Ages anymore.

shade cloth for starters...chickens on the loose and guinea fowl....greenhouse with shade cloth covering too for summer and winter production.

I didn't even try to put in any garden this year, and I'm glad I didn't. It broke my heart last year, after all my hard work, to watch it all wither up and die no matter what I did. I don't know what the answer is, but it scares me. I read somewhere that they're saying it's definitely going to last at least 7 years and maybe longer. It's weird, Oklahoma with all these lakes and ponds and yet we can't get enough water to grow food. After 7 years, we may look like those pictures of Africa that are so barren. :(

RH, are you noticing more spiders? I'm being over-run with all kinds this year, never had much problem before. I was just sitting in my chair watching Netflix last night just before going to sleep and looked down and there was a big brown recluse just sitting on my thumb! :eek: I never even felt him crawl on, and it's a wonder I didn't get bitten the way I jumped and flung him off! I got up and squished him before he got away, but that's the fourth one in the house this summer already, and I've never seen a single one of those since I've lived here. Needless to say, I was wide awake for a while after that, lol!

I've also had five or six other varieties, of which I'm not sure, and loads of them. It seems like every time I turn around I'm having to kill another one...but no webs in the house anywhere!

During droughts I generally let my outdoor garden go fallow and concentrate on the attached green room container and hydroponics crops since that 350 square foot room has air conditioning and shading.

I have county water and deep well water piped into my house and to my garden so I'm good until we become the American Sahara and if I'm lucky I will be dead by that time since I am already qualified for senior discount at some retailers and will qualify for the others within 5 years.

we are covered in spiders this year, along with ants. i stood under our carport last night, and easily sprayed 10 black/brown widows that were HUGE. we haven't seen any of those for a couple of years, but i guess the mild winter helped a population explosion.

I thought it was strange that I'm seeing many more ants than usual. They even got in the house twice in the last 2 months! I was thinking I was doing something wrong... Exterminator told me that it's been a really bad bug spring and summer so far.... Now I'm beginning to understand why.

Just a thought on grasshoppers, I have fought them in the past and spraying while killing a lot unless one was ready to spray on an on going basis and the new herds just kept moving in. Would row covers work?

There's always a balance in nature. You may be hotter and dryer, but this is the coolest and wettest summer I've spent in my part of Texas.
If someone told me this spring that we'd get rain in July not once but 5 times so far I would have said they were dreaming.

I'm wondering how long it will be until some folks dream up a way to divert excess rainfall to drought areas.

It has been very dry here this year and there have been past years where it was way to dry. Other years it is way too wet and occasionally it is just right. To simplify the gardening we made beds; 40 ft. long and 3 ft wide. We have about ten now made. We compost heavily , making compost every year all year. In a dry year like we are having ;the surface ground and even an inch down will feel dry. But deeper the compost keeps the plant roots damp and from dying. Luckily we get heavy dew and fog even when there is no rain and that helps to keep plants alive too.

We also have a small green house which is easy to care for except green houses have their own problems like aphids to deal with.

In a worst case senario with years of severe drought I would be eating sprouts grown indoors. They have good food value although don't make you feel very full. Beans will grow in poor ground and like dry weather also. Shading a greenhouse and putting in compost to retain moisture would help too in a drought. When growing conditions are severe planting less area is better. Small hot houses with shades or garden beds in partly shaded areas can produce alot and are easier to care for than big traditional gardens.
As for insects this year there are the usual number plus extra potato bugs and we have never seen so many rats and mice! Cats and our farm collie are keeping them in check though.

It is unusually dry here in NY also. We are known for our wet summers and not as much sun as other areas of the country. We did have some rain yesterday, it rained for awhile and was a good rain. But not enough. Our trees in the forest around us have been losing their leaves. I fear forest fires. Our well is a shallow hand dug well and has never gone dry in all the years we have been here. We are being very careful with water use though. Last year our area had 2 major floods. I never even though about a drought here before.

People started doing that thousands of years ago. It's called "water capture and diversion", defined as the active capture and application of water using dams, headgates, canal systems, and other such methods.

Now if you're thinking instead of a method of diverting rain clouds to drought stricken areas - it's not possible and can't be done.

There is cloud seeding to create rain but that's different and you need clouds for that to work. Cloud seeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If the droughts continue indefinitely and continue to effect more and more geographical areas then people will have 2 choices - they can move to some place where there is no drought - an iffy proposition because there's no way of knowing if other places won't also become drought stricken - or people will have to start mass production of desalinization plants on coastlines and build canals and pipelines to deliver ocean water to drought stricken areas. The desalinization plants and pipelines seems to me to be the most logical and practical solution and there is no excuse to not do it.

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I am slowly adding raised beds and using cloth row covers and hoop row covers to start the garden earlier and to protect from frost to extend the growing season. Up here we only have about 90 days that are frost free.
I'm also making a redneck watering system with a 5 gallon pail (filled with water when needed) and a soaker hose because of problems with my garden hydrant.

Around here last about 1/2 day (or less) before becoming a coyote's dinner.

Yes I have. Outside around the edge of the house I've been seeing lots of huge grass spiders. Every once in a while one gets in the house and we'll chase it down and kill it.

I've thought about row covers also. But some vegetables and fruit bushes require bees to pollenate, so row covers may not work in thier case. Also, as thick as the grasshoppers are, I think they might eat holes through the cover. I have a small stock trailer with cattle panels for the walls and I usually place my trash bags inside it till I get a good load to haul to the dump. Well yesterday I walked by it and noticed the grasshoppers were eating holes all through the plastic bags. Last year they ate holes in some of my window screens that I had repaired and used cheap plastic screen. So when they get hungry enough, they're like a half grown pup, they'll chew on anything.

Just curious - are they grasshoppers or are they locusts?

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I am a bit confused here, I live in an area that is considered an extreme drought. Yet my garden is producing and looking beautiful. The peas have given up due to the heat but everything eles is doing well. We just water it. Now we don't have any water restrictions, but I have not heard anyone post that their garden was dieing because of restriction. They just say they are dieing from the heat and lack of water. Can someone please explain why that is?

Why would you waste a perfectly good source of protein?

I understand the principle of waste not want not but how much time and effort should a person expend in catching grasshoppers so you can utilize their protein?

What is the best way to catch enough grasshoppers if you're planning on eating them? Are there tools or traps of some kind that can be used to catch them?

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:yuck:

Anyone read The Grasshopper Trap by Pat MacManus?

When I lived where the summers were triple digit temperatures for weeks at a time, I gave the garden a good soaking every night around midnight when it cooled off into the 90s. Things grew like crazy.

By time it got that hot in the summer, all the cool weather crops were finished anyway.

large electric fence encloser to start with...and plenty of snare wire..i think coons are worse than coyotes.

definayly have to do something...maybe let them out for the last part of day then lock up at night and just watch over them while loose.

If the drought raises the cost of chicken feed or destroys your chicken feed crops it makes sense to look into recycling those pests to the poultry/pigs.
Just googled a bunch of different traps for curiosity and they do exist. I have a grasshopper eating cat BTW

You know, it's all very well and fine to talk about how good your gardens do or did if you have plenty of water but what are you not understanding about what happens to plants when they don't have enough water?

Even if there is an availability of plenty of water if the temperatures are high enough the heat ruptures the cells of certain types of plants and intense ultra violet radiation burns ALL plants, even plants that are shaded. Heat and UV radiation kills them.

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This is the last year of this drought.

Soon folks will be complaining about too much rain

I was in no way trying to be rude, we have had higher then normal temps the relitive humidity is way lower, we have lived in the high desert and until they say we can't water we will. When the temps are really high and the plants are looking stressed we will top water just to cool them down. But for the most part they get watered every other day by the irrigation system hubby set up and all plants are thriving. I can understand farmers or people with more then an for use only garden may be stuggling, but those who have just a basic garden for personal use, watching it just die I don't understand. I am no way trying to start another ":poison " thread just trying to learn more as we go longer with out rain.

How do you know this is the last year of the drought?

Well, I wasn't trying to imply that you (or Laura) were being rude, just asking why you couldn't understand how it is that other people have plants that are dying when they don't have enough water in their locations.

See, you and Laura both mentioned having had no problems with watering your plants (because you HAVE the water) and your plants thriving while living in high desert climate. Your plants were started in high desert climate and have adapted from the get go to those climate conditions and the soil you have, they have adapted to getting the water they need on a regular schedule. Your plants are not suffering from climate shock.

Most of the other folks posting here who are having troubles, not enough water, it's become too hot, the soil has changed and their plants are dying - they don't all live in a high desert climate. Their plants weren't started in high desert conditions, they were started in different climate and soil conditions in different locations on the continent that the plants adapted to as seedlings but then ALL conditions changed, got hotter and drier than normal, the soil changed and there's not enough water and that makes their plants go into shock and die.

All living organisms can and will go into shock and may die when the environment they're living in and adapted to changes to extreme conditions that they don't have time to re-adapt to and don't have enough water. Plants, animals, birds, insects, humans, even soil and the micro-organisms and beneficial bacteria living in the soil, etc. will all go into shock and trauma.

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The temperature patterns are starting to change in the Pacific.
This drought is largely due to two El Nino's in a row

NatureLover, please read my first post in this thread.

I did see that, but you live on the Olympic Peninsula now according to your location. I know what the Olympic Peninsula is like, remember I'm only a short hop skip and a jump away from you and share similar Pacific climate. You now have easy peasy growing conditions where you are now and water isn't an issue compared to when you were living where the summers were triple digit temperatures for weeks at a time (wherever that was) and you gave your garden a good soaking every night. If you could give your garden a good soaking every night at that time in whatever location that was then it might have been hot but you weren't in real drought conditions then either.

Nobody in real drought conditions can soak their garden every night because they don't have the water to spare for that. That is the point I've been trying to make.

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Can you show evidence that the temperature patterns are starting to change in the Pacific now? Because all the evidence I've been reading lately from oceanographers is that the Pacific is continuing in it's warming trend.

And it's been 3 years now of El Nino conditions, not 2. The end of the last La Nina was in the winter of 2008/2009. Then El Ninos after that. Last summer oceanographers were predicting that the 2011/2012 winter would be a La Nina winter and it wasn't, it was a 3rd El Nino winter. Three El Nino years in a row is already an anomaly that has never been known to happen before in all the nearly 200 years since the beginning of official records when mariners first started recording El Nino and La Nina cycles in the early 1800's.

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NATURELOVER
"Nobody in real drought conditions can soak their garden every night because they don't have the water to spare for that. That is the point I've been trying to make."

??? Many here absolutely have the water to soak a garden overnight. I can't speak for everyone and that sometimes becomes a communication problem on this board that people forget, not everyplace is like where they live. A drought does not necessarily dry up ones well. I have heard no one complaining about there well going dry. So they have the ability of watering a garden. If one is useing rain catchment or dissapearing surface water it could be a problem. People who garden in dry climates know before they plant that they will have to irrigate. People who live where generally there is adequate rainfall and usually don't have to water may not be as well prepared. Again people and regions where we live are not all the same.

Wilting, rolling leaves is a natural defense against transpiration water loss. I have seen corn leaves rolled up with water running down the row. Low humidity, wind and high temps made it impossible for the plant to absorb and transport the amount of water being lost, so the corn leaf rolls to decrease exposed surface area and reduce water loss.

I might mention that I also have drought conditions. No measurable rain since May 26, many days 90s-100s and low humidity. Meteorgical definition of a drought is a percentage of normal rainfall. Normal precip of Rawlins WY would be considered a drought in Atlanta Ga.

Bruce, 'here' is Nebraska for you, right? And is your well's source the Ogallala aquifer?

Oh man, now you may have just opened up this topic to a major lecture from NL about responsible water conservation . :smack

Trust me on this, you do not want to get her started on a nightmare of ranting on what's happening with the human-caused rapid depletion of the Ogallala. LOL. :hysterical:

The misuse and abuse of the Ogallala is a real sore point with her. :run:

I said " 2 EL Nino's", not "2 years"



"Drought" just means below normal rainfall

It doesn't mean WELLS are all dried up

"Officially" we have been in a "drought" here for several years, but very little has died completely.

It's a matter of degrees, and the media is playing this one up for all it's worth.

I also learned to farm in the San Juaquin Valley, farmed in the Sierra foothills, the Siskyous and Montana. I know all about water restrictions and conservation. One reason I moved here because of agriculture's losing battles in the ongoing Western Water Wars. All plants die without water, even in cool weather.

Adapt, adapt, adapt. Some varieties thrive and prosper at 112 degrees. Plug into NOAA, plan and plant accordingly.

While we have access to water from the garden hose (not much in the way of rain), the varieties of plants that normally do well around here are dying from the high temperatures. We tend to plant crops that are a bit frost hardy since that is our usually plant killer. This year, we'd have done well to plant varieties that do well in the southern states.

We're in a severe drought area and the temps are high. We have been watering our garden every night, but the heat is taking it's toll.

Paumon Yes I have heard the rant.